


Tether

by Miniatures



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Pre-Movie(s), Pre-Slash, Pre-blindness Chirrut, child characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-16 22:49:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9292943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miniatures/pseuds/Miniatures
Summary: Before the Temple falls, before Chirrut goes blind, before they are even friends, Baze follows Chirrut into the cold and the dark.





	

The air is dry and cold, its teeth buried in the meat of Baze’s nose. That and his eyes are the only things uncovered—a dense woolen scarf shrouds the rest of his face and head. He’s spooled it around his neck, stuffed it into the loose collar of his acolyte robes to make sure the biting night winds of Jedha don’t wind their way through. Normally he wouldn’t be caught dead braving their sting, not for anything. Normally he wouldn’t be caught dead out after curfew, either.

Jedha is deceptive in its dustiness. The sand is more like baked clay, packed and hard with a gritty, chalky give, and you leave only the shallowest footprints behind you, easily disturbed by the winds. There are places, of course, where the soil is rich and true, but they are nowhere near Jedha City. Jedha City is clay and stone and kyber through and through.

All of this, of course, makes nighttime tracking nearly impossible. Baze can make out a bare, thin trail in front of him that he thinks may have been left by the others, but he can’t be certain. He’s not sure it’s even an actual trail. He wonders whether, if he doesn’t manage to find the others, they’ll be able to find him on their way back. He wonders whether the Guardians will bother coming after him the next day. He doesn’t wonder whether his quarry will return to the temple if he can’t catch them—they’re being led by Chirrut Îmwe, after all.

_Chirrut_. Baze wrinkles his nose and coughs into the thick of his scarf. Chirrut, with his broad grins and his lanky limbs and his incessant jokes. Chirrut, who volunteered himself to the service of the Whills one mild morning, baring his bright teeth and asking when he could visit the kyberite veins. Chirrut, who excels in all aspects of his acolyte training, who bears his gifts with a smile and a shrug, who feels the Force like a fifth limb and so frequently shirks his lessons in favour of private seminars with senior Guardians.

Chirrut, who has led several other acolytes on a secret pilgrimage to the Catacombs of Cadera.

Baze was there when Chirrut had come up with the idea—they and a handful of their peers were sorting documents in the temple library when An’wi decided to regale them with stories of the spirits that haunted the Catacombs’ depths.

“You take one step inside,” she’d said, “and your blood turns to ice!”

They’d all laughed, but Chirrut laughed the hardest. An’wi went on, and soon others chimed in, swapping myths of the ruined monastery until, finally, Baze made the mistake of speaking.

“It’s nothing but a bedtime story,” he said. He’d meant it as a comfort to Li-Thar, a young Cerean acolyte clearly trying to hide his fear, but the older children scoffed.

“It’s all true,” Chirrut said. “I’ve felt the presence of the spirits myself, even from here!”

“You haven’t,” Baze grumbled. Beside him, Li-Thar shuddered—and that time Chirrut seemed to notice.

“Have!” Chirrut insisted, eyes on the Cerean. “And I can prove it—they don’t like me, you know. They can’t touch those who are one with the Force, and it makes them afraid. I can get them to quake in their ghostly boots!”

Baze rolled his eyes. Chirrut narrowed his.

“We’ll go tomorrow night,” he said. “Myself and anyone who wants to join me. I’ll show you they’re real, and there’s nothing to fear.”

Baze hadn’t thought they’d actually go. For all the boy’s posturing, he thought Chirrut had at least some respect for the rules of the temple. And yet he’d woken for a glass of water that night and found Chirrut’s bunk empty. And Li-Thar’s, and Banna’s, and a handful of others’. And Baze couldn’t let them go, not all the way to Cadera in the middle of the night, not led by the bravado of a foolish upstart like Chirrut Îmwe.

It’s been an hour, and he’s not sure he’s anywhere near the catacombs. He can hardly see—the winds are picking up and the loose earth is clouding around him. What faint excuse for a maybe-trail he’s been following is completely gone now. He’s coming upon a dark shape, and he doesn’t know whether it’s the right one.

To Baze’s immense relief, after another fifteen minutes the shape takes on some definition, and the base of the catacombs’ entrance rises before him. The structure is carved into a mesa, the maze of graves and old prayer halls plunging deep beneath Jedha’s clay. Like the Temple of the Whills, Cadera’s greatest claim to fame is hidden far below what’s visible.

He feels around in the dark for some way up, until at last he finds a narrow footpath carved into the side of the mesa. It’s hard going, and Baze’s scarf keeps slipping over his eyes, and the clay crumbles beneath his feet like brittle shale. He’s sweating and panting by the time he reaches the top. But at long last he does it, pulls himself over the lip of what appears to be an open-air antechamber, lined with columns and rubble. The floor might’ve once gleamed with some sort of pattern, but now it’s gap-toothed: littered with broken tile in scraps of designs otherwise worn away by time and nature. At the end of it is a wall of mesa, and a large rusted door leading deeper inside.

It’s also empty.

There’s no sign of the other acolytes here. Baze frowns and makes his way across the antechamber—slowly, out of respect. The air is thinner up here and yet there’s a weight to it, a curious cold solidity that clings to his ankles, bearing him down. It’s solemn and quiet and ancient, and Baze wonders if that’s the Force. He wonders and he prays, because he’s never felt this weight at the temple before, not even around the kyber crystals.

He reaches the door. It’s made of a dark metal, and carved with swirling grit-worn patterns that almost look like a language. Though it’s comprised of two mirrored halves, giving the impression of a double door, now that Baze is up close he can see no clear seam. He places his hands on the surface, searching for a hinge, a pressure point, _anything_ to indicate that the door can be opened.

After twenty minutes, he gives up.

Baze curses under his breath. Then again, louder, because who’s going to hear him? There’s no way Chirrut and his merry band of sycophants are inside, and if they’re not out here…

For a horrifying moment, Baze considers that Chirrut might’ve led them astray, that they might’ve gotten lost in the dark and dust and it is _they_ that the Guardians will be unable to find come dawn. But no—perfect Chirrut could never make such a mistake. The mysterious golden boy is protected by the Force, protected by the Guardians’ preference, protected by his own infuriating talent and charm. More likely they decided not to brave the nasty weather and came back inside. More likely they are all warm in their bunks now, sound asleep or drifting there, hardly noticing that Baze is missing.

Baze slumps against the door and sinks to the ground. He gathers his knees to his chest and buries his face between them, trying not to cry. _Stupid, useless_ —

“Baze?”

His head shoots up so fast that his scarf comes unwound, settles around his neck. A figure approaches him, clutching a training staff in one hand.

“Baze Malbus, what… in the name of… the Force—ah, I need to catch my breath.” Chirrut tosses his hood back, leans on the staff and inhales deeply. He stifles a cough before breaking out into a grin. “I _knew_ you were up here.”

Baze blinks stupidly up at him. Then he growls. “If I’m up here, it’s your fault.”

“What do you mean, _if_ you’re up here? Are you trying to suggest I’m dreaming so I won’t get you in trouble?” Chirrut sits beside him with a grunting laugh. “I’ll be in just as much if I give you away, don’t worry.”

“You were _supposed_ to be here. You said you were bringing—”

“Baze, Baze, silly Baze, you should know I don’t mean half the things I say.” Chirrut pats him on the knee. “Well. Yes, I do. But I wasn’t about to come all the way out _here_ in the middle of the night, not with these winds. I must say, I’m very impressed you managed to find your way.”

Baze rolls his eyes. “Why, because I’m such a fool?”

“Because _I_ barely made it myself!”

“Oh, of course, if the great Chirrut could barely make it, the foolish Baze couldn’t _possibly_.”

“Would you stop that?” Chirrut whacks his shin with the staff—light, but firm. “You’re not a fool. You’re right on my heels in all our classes, aren’t you?”

Baze kicks at the staff. “ _Behind_ you.”

“But only just.”

“Still.” Baze turns to him, snarling. “You’re the temple favourite. And you just… showed up one day, poised to take over. I’ve been here all my life, Chirrut. I’ve devoted everything to the temple, and I still have to stand in your shadow! I still have to worry you’ll run off in the night to prove yourself! And I still wind up looking the fool at the end of it all, whatever you say.”

Chirrut stares at him. His brows are creased with hurt, his wide eyes more confused than anything. “You… is that what you really think of me, Baze Malbus? After three years?”

Baze snorts. “It’s all I’ve ever thought of you.”

“I see.” Chirrut turns away, nodding slowly.

They sit in silence for a long moment, listening to the wind whistle outside the protection of the antechamber. Finally, Chirrut speaks again. Quietly, more quiet than Baze has ever heard him.

“I was nine,” he says. “My parents went to a nearby town on a supply run, and there was a dust storm… they never came back.”

Baze tenses despite himself.

“They told me, once,” Chirrut goes on, “that the safest place on the whole moon was the Temple of the Whills in Jedha City. So when I’d almost run out of food, I left our home with everything I could carry and started walking. I didn’t know where I was going, but there was… a tug in my belly, pulling me towards the Holy City. Of course, I didn’t know that at the time, but I trusted the tug. My mother told me feelings like that are the Force’s way of guiding us when we’re lost.”

He glances at Baze, and his eyes are shining wet even in the dark. “I’ve never wanted to take over, Baze. I just wanted to come home.”

Baze can’t meet Chirrut’s gaze, suddenly. He looks down, guilt worming dense and hot in his gut. He breathes in, breathes out—the solemn air is cool and liquid in his chest, and he hates it, because he knows that can’t be the Force. If the Force is a tether, then he’s never felt it. He’s never felt tied to anything.

“I was nine months,” he says, just as quiet as Chirrut. “I was the youngest of seven children, but my parents could only feed six.” He shrugs. “I guess that doesn’t make me suited to be a Guardian.”

Chirrut laughs, and the laugh sounds choked. “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you _can’t_ be suited, if that’s what you want to be.”

To his surprise, Baze finds his mouth curling into a smile. “That’s what the Guardians tell me. You’ve been spending too much time with them.”

“And who else should I spend time with?” Chirrut sniffs, but his voice is wry. “They’re the ones with the keys to the kyber caves.”

It’s Baze’s turn to laugh, now, and when Chirrut joins him the sound is almost musical.

They dust themselves off shortly thereafter, and make their way to the lip of the antechamber once again. The footpath is even more intimidating from this angle, and Baze is suddenly positive that he can’t have come up this way.

But Chirrut charges ahead, offering his staff behind him for Baze to hold onto. Somehow they make it to the bottom of the mesa, only to see the dust flying even denser than before.

“Keep your grip strong,” Chirrut says, “and your eyes covered. I’ll lead us back, Baze.”

“Because your eyes are so much better than mine?” Baze quips, unable to keep the comment back.

Chirrut only grins and pats his belly. “Because I’m the only one of us who isn’t lost.”

This time, it only takes forty minutes for them to make it back to the temple. They stumble in through the kitchen’s service door, coughing and shaking sand from their clothes. Chirrut’s cheeks are flushed pink, his eyes shining as bright as his smile.

“I’ve got to return this,” he says, gesturing with the training staff. “But I’ll meet you back in our quarters, yes?”

“Of course.”

They part ways outside the kitchens, and Baze is, for the first time in the three years he’s known him, grateful for Chirrut Îmwe.

As he settles into his bunk, he feels the dullest of tugs in his belly. But he dismisses it—the moment he hears Chirrut come in, after all, it fades away.

**Author's Note:**

> *throws this at you* PLEASE VALIDATE ME 
> 
> Also this OTP is the stuff of legends and I love it.
> 
> The Catacombs of Cadera, btw, are where Saw and his rebels hide out in the movie. Except this is 40 years earlier so I can makE THEM LOOK HOW I LIKE OKAY??


End file.
